Amable Tastu


Amable Tastu, real name Sabine Casimire Amable Voïart, was a 19th-century French poet and writer.

Biography

She was born in Metz, northeastern France to Jacques-Philippe Voïart and Jeanne-Amable Bouchotte. Four years after her mother died in 1802, her father married Anne-Élisabeth-Élise Petitpain, a woman of letters, 30 years his junior, from Nancy, France who shared with Amable her knowledge of English, German and Italian.
After an early poem "Le Narcisse" was published in 1816 by Mercure de France, her work was noticed by Adelaïde Dufrénoy who became a patron and with whom she developed a close friendship. Her poetry was praised for its delicacy by the literary critic Sainte-Beuve.
In 1816, Amable she married Joseph Tastu, a printer in Perpignan and they had one child. But in 1830, the bankruptcy of her husband's printing business, spurred Tastu to support her family by working in the book trade. She produced educational works as well as literary criticisms including guides to Italian and German literature: Tableau de la littérature italienne, and Tableau de la littérature allemande, respectively.
According to Buck, after her husband died in 1849, Tastu "accompanied her son on diplomatic missions to Cyprus, Baghdad, Belgrade and Alexandria, and only returned to France in 1864 when her sight began to fail."
She died 10 January 1885 in Palaiseau France.

Works